Peter Molyneux's Curiosity was designed to be a social experiment of sorts with the intention of informing future game design.

Curiosity - What's Inside the Cube launched in November 2012 with no shortage of excitement, at least from the designer, Peter Molyneux himself. The game is simple. You chip away at tiny cubelets, which are part of a larger, layered cube. Each layer has its own design so you don't get too bored while you're hammering away at it. The ultimate goal is to get to the center of the cube and discover what's inside, hence the title Curiosity. The cube was comprised of literally billions of cubelets to begin, which would be a daunting task if Curiosity didn't boast nearly five million participants since its launch.

To date, upwards of 25 billion cubelets have been cleared away by the almost five million players, leaving only 50 of the 300 something layers left to dig through. For a sense of scale, at one cubelet per second, clearing 25 billion cubelets would have taken a single person over 800 years. Curiosity has been a bane of productivity for some, racking up roughly 50 million man hours of time spent with the game.

The final push to the center of the cube is expected to take anywhere from 1 to 50 days, depending on the chiseling fervor. Of course, the ability to add cubelets might make the home stretch a little more challenging. Despite the griefing potential, for everybody out there who couldn't be bothered to help chip away the first 272 layers, I expect the final 50 layers to be a much more compelling objective. While those who've been there all along might be nonplussed when a newcomer gets to the mystery bit in the center, that possibility has to be part of Molyneux's grand scheme.

Oh come on, it's Peter Molyneux! Having said that, as a social experiment/MMO/entirely new kind of mass game this is pretty mind blowing. Whilst whatever's in the middle probably won't live up to the enormous amount of expectation and speculation the project as a whole is amazing and Mr Molyneux's actually hit it out the park.

Its just the amount of money that Peter Molyneux made with this "game". It will certainly mind blow who ever opens it and change his perspective in life with the message of "You are an idiot, thanks for your money, lolz"

Inside the cube is...a SPHERE! Behold the majesty of the sphere and it's lack of edges. Kneel before it and know that it is good and right. Embrace the sphere and give Peter Molyneux some more of your money.

I am, shall we say, less than certain what the ability to add cubes back to the cube has to do with curiosity as opposed to monetized griefing. It seems like the kind of stunt that caused Molydeux to come into being.

From the folds of her gown, she lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side. She turned it and Paul saw that one side was open - black and oddly frightening. Paul slowly put his hand into the box. He first felt a sense of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his hand were asleep...

"And as the runner reaches the final stretch of the marrathon I think we can all safely say....What's this? It apears someone is knocked out the runner and is now dragging him backward, what kind of cruel person would do this."If Curiosity were a person I feel something like this would be happening about now.

luvd1:Some people have more money then sense. If there are idiots willing to hand over cash to play this, then all power to Pete's arm for taking it off them. But then there are always idiots who game.

No one has to pay to play this game. It's completely free to download and play. You can pay for optional, temporary powerups, but you can also pay for those with an ingame currency you get just for playing the game.

Callate:I am, shall we say, less than certain what the ability to add cubes back to the cube has to do with curiosity as opposed to monetized griefing. It seems like the kind of stunt that caused Molydeux to come into being.

As someone who is playing the game, I think the ability to add cubes is a very interesting part of Molyneux's social experiment. Of all the power ups you can buy, those are the only ones that can't be purchased with ingame money (coins you earn by clearing blocks). It costs between $0.99 to $9 to buy the ability to add more blocks, with price dependent upon how many blocks you want to remove, so anyone that wants to "grief" will have to spend a decent amount of money to make any sort of difference in the progress made. I'm interested in seeing who would actually spend the money to do so, as it seems it would take a really dedicated griefer willing to hand money over to Molyneux to ruin his own game.

I expect the contents of the box to end world hunger, and bring peace to the universe. It will discover aliens and alternate reality, and usher in a utopia... Or it could all just be one big let down; a note with the words, "Was it worth it?" hastily scribbled down onto it.

VortexCortex:From the folds of her gown, she lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side. She turned it and Paul saw that one side was open - black and oddly frightening. Paul slowly put his hand into the box. He first felt a sense of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his hand were asleep...

"What's in the box?"

"Pain."

For this I instantly like you somewhat more than an average Internet stranger :D

Callate:I am, shall we say, less than certain what the ability to add cubes back to the cube has to do with curiosity as opposed to monetized griefing. It seems like the kind of stunt that caused Molydeux to come into being.

Actually I think that was a brilliant idea. After all it's supposed to be a social experiment into the nature of gaming and if I were a game designer I would be curious as hell to get those statistics. See? Curiosity is there, just not the kind a gamer has ;)